


before morning comes

by revolutionaries



Series: vacant land [3]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Recovery, brief references to suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 11:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17324591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionaries/pseuds/revolutionaries
Summary: '"Then say it," says Izaya quietly. "Just say it, Shinra. I've already worked it out. I already know. There's no harm in saying it now. It's just me."He waits, gives him a glimmer of a smile before standing up. His legs shake slightly but he steadies himself. "You can't say it," he says, and glances towards the window. "That's fine. I'll say it then."'Izaya, Shinra & five years down the line.





	before morning comes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [izanyas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/izanyas/gifts).



The summer sun is setting over Tokyo as Shinra makes his way home. The streets are flooded with commuters heading to the train station. The air is too warm, the oppressive humidity causing his clothes to stick to him unpleasantly as he climbs the staircase of the pedestrian bridge. In the trees lining the expressway, the evening cicadas are singing.

He reaches the top of the stairs and pauses, one hand resting on the railing as he catches his breath. This particular bridge overlooks the train lines converging on the station. If he were to look over the other side, he can see them stretch all the way into the Tokyo suburbs, blurring into the horizon and high-rises in a haze of silver. Ikebukuro by sunset: the harsh lines of the buildings accentuated further by the glowing orange of the sky.

He never found it beautiful until five years ago.

Until five years ago, Ikebukuro had been a mere backdrop for his daily activities. It could have been anywhere in Tokyo, anywhere in Japan. The city was the city – nothing more than the place he grew up.

Until five years ago, Shinra had never tried to look at it any differently. And then the city was altered in a way that sent his perspective reeling. The city, no longer the city he knew, would probably never return. Even the air itself felt different.

Perspective, he thinks as he gazes at the tracks that glint silver in the dying light, is a funny thing.

He had never thought about what made a city a city until five years ago. Then it had became clear that while he had never considered it, Ikebukuro had always been that signature cackle of a laugh fading in the night, the flash of fur and white teeth disappearing beneath the street lamps.

Ikebukuro had always, always been a person to him. A transient being, something that could slip away given a moment's notice. He hadn't noticed until it slipped away entirely.

He doesn't think about it often. The blood left on the ground, washed away by the next week's rain. The shock that came afterwards, dulled only by the fact that it was an expected outcome. The sound of his voice on the phone, shaking and childlike as he admitted to Shinra what he could barely admit to himself.

He doesn't think about it often, because pain and guilt and regret were never emotions he had felt until that day. If he's honest with himself, he preferred the time in his life when he knew nothing of such emotions. He could manipulate and lie without a second thought. It had been so much simpler.

They met once, just once, after that. Spring in Enoshima. The last time he visited the island. It had rained later that day and they had retreated inside a café. They had never spoken for such a long time before that day. He had told Shinra more than he ever had before.

Shinra closes his eyes against the sun, low in the sky as it beams through a gap in the skyscrapers. He can remember everything about that day. The trembling of his hands around his glass as he tapped anxiously against it, the dirtied white petals scattered on the surface of the puddles, the shaking of his own voice as he said his hasty goodbyes and headed through the ticket gates with his head bowed low.

It all ended so suddenly.

Always living in fear of their own emotions, neither of them had contacted the other again.

He lets out a sigh and retreats home. The clicking of the door echoes around the empty apartment.

"I'm home," he calls halfheartedly, as if expecting an answer. As always, no one replies.

He takes off his shoes in the entrance, tosses his bag onto the floor and pads through to the kitchen. The hum of the coffee machine is the only sound in the apartment. He lifts his drink through to the living room, switches on the television and absently channel hops. His father and Emilia are still in America and won't be home for another two months. He tells himself he enjoys the solitude after so many years of living with others.

Every day goes something like this. He works the same unusual hours he always has. He walks home as slowly as he can and when he gets home he does nothing productive. The days pass uneventfully. Predictably. Shiki always has work for him and he manages to make more money than he ever has before.

"I'm home," he calls halfheartedly on another day, much like all the others. This time he freezes in the entrance. It doesn't echo as it always does. His heart beats faster as he walks cautiously towards the living room. The door is half-open, not the way he left it. He pushes it as lightly as he can.

A figure like a ghost stands in the room, shadowed by the evening light from the window. It's different, more filled out than he remembered it to be but it's the same height, same tilted head, same _everything_.

"Hey, Shinra," says Izaya, his grin and eyes as sharp as ever. "Long time, no see."

Shinra swallows. If this was fifteen years ago, he'd laugh and call his name joyfully as he trailed behind. If this was ten years ago, he'd still laugh and maybe bump his shoulder lightly. Five years ago, he'd have given him a small smile and left soon after.

As it stands, he isn't sure what reaction is appropriate any more.

"You look well," he says with visible effort.

Izaya's expression softens around the edges, something Shinra hasn't seen in years. It reminds him of the boy he used to know. "I'm a lot better than before," he says, and it's as honest as that day in Enoshima. "I worked hard."

"You don't need—" Shinra's eyes scan the room, finding the wheelchair sitting behind his couch.

"I still do," he answers. "But only for when I get tired. I wanted to look at the city from your window again. The way I used to."

"You—" Shinra starts, but then shakes his head and tries again. "Why did you come back? You said there was nothing here for you any more."

The smile Izaya gives him is wry, tinged with irony. "It seems that other cities just can't hold my interest in the same way that Ikebukuro does. I searched the whole country, from Sapporo to Kagoshima, and I couldn't find anything that offers me what I can get here." He shrugs. "In other words, once I was able to admit it to myself, I realised that I missed this place."

But why _here_? Shinra longs to ask. Out of all the places in the city, out of all his contacts – Shiki, Kine, Namie – why did he come _here_?

Realising that Shinra isn't going to answer, Izaya's eyes dart around the room. "You're alone?"

The reply comes harder than he thought it would. "Yeah," he says quietly. "For the moment."

"Celty's out?" He's still gazing around the room, emptier than it was the last time he saw it five years ago. Then his eyes widen and Shinra sees him put the pieces together. He looks at Shinra, as though waiting for his approval to say something.

"Like I said." Shinra sweeps over to the coffee table and grabs his unwashed mug. He turns and heads to the kitchen, face turned away. "I'm alone for the moment."

He expects Izaya to push the issue, to ask more questions, but he doesn't. Instead, he just follows Shinra silently to the kitchen and lowers himself slowly onto one of the bar stools. "After Enoshima, I did a lot of thinking."

Shinra busies himself with washing the dishes, making more noise than necessary.

Izaya ignores this, of course, and continues talking. He doesn't even bother to change his pitch, like he knows Shinra will listen to what he has to say anyway. "I decided that same day that I would finally accept treatment. My doctor was… shocked, to say the least. But every day I practiced. I suppose all along my goal was to return to Tokyo some day. But my condition to myself was that if I were to return here, I had to be healthy."

There's a long pause. Shinra doesn't turn around, doesn't want to know what kind of expression is on Izaya's face. He doesn't think he can bear it, to look from the outside in on the five years of his life that he missed.

If he's being truly honest with himself, they missed a lot more than five years of each other's lives.

"Not just physically," says Izaya, quieter now. "I had a lot of things to work on. A lot of things I'm still working on. But for the first time in years I felt ready to face this city again. It didn't terrify me. I— _wanted_ —to come back."

"Do you regret everything you did in the past?" He isn't sure where the question comes from. For once, he doesn't know what answer he's hoping to hear.

Izaya laughs softly, and even that sounds different. It's gentle, like the way he laughed when they were fifteen and no one else was around. Shinra hasn't heard that laugh in what feels like forever. He aches with the familiarity of this whole situation. As if they're teenagers again, talking in hushed voices in the corner of the school grounds about science and myth, toeing the careful line of friendship between them.

He knows Izaya had always longed to push that line to its breaking point.

"No," Izaya says, and it's firm. "I did everything for a reason. I still do. Even if that reason is chaos." Shinra can hear the nonchalance in his voice. "Why? Do you?"

"I regret it all," says Shinra suddenly. He dries off his hands and turns back to face Izaya, still perched at the counter.

There's no surprise on Izaya's face. In fact, it looks like he expected this all along. He probably did, Shinra thinks somewhat bitterly. There's a chance this is all a big game to him too.

This time, Izaya's smile is sad. "I wondered what it would take."

"I'm not an experiment," Shinra replies, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice. "You can't study me like your other humans, so don't try."

His expression is unchanging. "You're right. I never could."

Shinra takes a sharp breath and turns his face away. The situation feels so familiar yet so disjointed from what he's used to. In this game, Shinra would always taunt Izaya in an attempt to force him to admit his own feelings. In return Izaya would skitter back and end the conversation, refusing to mention it until the next time Shinra provoked him.

Shinra was always the winner between them. The only person Izaya could never win against.

Izaya being so straightforward is not how this goes.

There's a long, awkward silence until Izaya straightens up and says, "I should get going."

He looks back in surprise. "Where?"

Izaya laughs again. "Well, Namie sold my apartment for me when I left town the first time, so I checked myself into a hotel. It's downtown, so I won't be bothering you." He moves past Shinra and heads to the living room.

Unable to watch him leave again, with the pressure of more than a decade of fragmented friendship or—something—between them weighing down on him, Shinra reaches out and grabs his arm with the courage he wishes he had years ago. "You don't have to do that."

Izaya glances back with genuine shock on his face for the first time that day. "What?"

Shinra's hand is still wound around Izaya's wrist, skin on skin. His palms are sweating and he knows it isn't from the evening humidity. "I—" He swallows, but he has to say it this time. What he didn't say all those years ago, when Izaya left again and again.

They're older now. He can see the start of laugh lines around Izaya's mouth and his eyes glow not with malice but with something that looks a lot like happiness. Something about him feels lighter, like he's shed all of the ideals and fantasies he spent his early twenties chasing after. This is Izaya as he's never seen him before. For a split second, Shinra almost feels jealous of him.

But they're older now, and if he watched Izaya leave again then he knows it really would be for the last time.

"Stay," he says earnestly, and lets Izaya's arm go.

Izaya opens his mouth but for once seems lost for words. He visibly fumbles for a moment and then says, "Ah—Alright." He smiles. "Just for tonight."

Shinra relaxes, relief flooding through him. "I'll set up the guest bedroom. Do you need to sit down?"

Izaya glances at the couch. "I should," he replies, and takes a seat.

Once he's finished fixing up the guest room, Shinra heads back into the living room. "Do you want tea?" he asks absently. At Izaya's noise of confirmation, he busies himself in the kitchen. The sun has set now and the sky outside has darkened. He watches Izaya stand again and walk over to the window as if spellbound by the view.

Shinra sets down the tea on the coffee table and approaches Izaya. The apartment is silent, just the two of them and the roar of a motorcycle from the street far below. Izaya's hand is splayed against the glass, his eyes reflecting in the window in a way that they look suspended above the cityscape.

"You really missed it," Shinra remarks softly as he moves beside Izaya. Close enough that their shoulders might brush, if Shinra could summon the courage to touch him so casually twice in one day.

"I didn't realise how much," admits Izaya, and lowers his hand. "But when I left I knew it was the right decision at the time."

Outside, the city continues on despite the heat and humidity, glowing yellow and red beyond the glass. The lights that stud the corners of the skyscrapers glint gently from red to black in a way that Shinra never appreciated until recently. It was only after he was gone that Shinra had realised: Ikebukuro had always been, would always be Izaya. Like a vessel. Like essence. Izaya seemed to hold the personality of the city within himself. Or maybe it was that Izaya had spent at least half of his life shaping Ikebukuro to be exactly what he wanted.

Shinra could love them both, if it was permitted.

"What are your plans here?" he asks. "Will you work?"

Izaya hums so quietly that it almost goes unnoticed. "I've been thinking about that a lot. I want to continue working, but there's a chance that my pool of contacts and sources has dwindled in my absence. The best option is probably to reach out to the Awakusu-kai again. Shiki-san is not a sentimental man but I'm hoping he'll make an exception for me." A wry grin curves the left side of his mouth upwards. "But we'll see."

"He continued to ask me about you, you know," Shinra replies. "He was the one that told me to contact Kine in the first place." When Izaya's surprised gaze slides from the window to meet Shinra's own, he affirms, "He wanted you to come back."

Izaya seems almost pleased at that and it looks like he's having a hard time keeping the smile from his face. "I suppose at least one person missed me. Or rather, my services."

When he was with Celty, Shinra had never hesitated to say exactly how he felt. Every emotion, every passing thought about her. It had seemed so straightforward, so obvious, to voice everything aloud, regardless of how embarrassed she might be by his words. He could always read her, gauge her reaction by body language alone.

But with Izaya… the words never fail to get caught in his throat. Now, after years of having grown apart from each other, each word seems ten times harder to say. What he longs to say is, _I missed you, almost every day._

But something stops him every time.

Izaya watches him carefully for another second longer before turning back to the window. "You've changed a lot, haven't you? I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it but… I can't deny it."

"You've changed too," he points out in return.

Izaya shrugs in response. "A little. At heart I'm still the same guy who messed with high-schoolers and orchestrated gang wars. Just a little older. Maybe even a little wiser. I never really stopped playing with people. But… you haven't physically changed, but everything else…" He pauses, taking his time to choose his words. "I can guess what the reason was. But you probably don't want to talk about it, right?"

"Why would I want to talk about something like that," Shinra responds bitterly. "If you're right, as you always are, then why would you even bring it up if you know I don't want to mention it?"

"Provocation, maybe," says Izaya idly. "A way of getting you back for all of the times you provoked me over the years. Who knows."

Shinra almost laughs. "Maybe I deserve that."

"You do," he replies without hesitation, but he's looking back at Shinra and smiling this time. "The tea is getting cold."

He lets Izaya guide him back over to the sofa and takes the cup that's pushed into his hands. Izaya sits on the armchair next to him, crossing his legs slowly. Shinra stares at them. "You have no problems now? The last time we spoke you could barely cross them like that."

"It comes and goes," says Izaya, and takes a sip of his tea. He moves the cup back and forward between his palms. "There are good days and there are bad days. But the bad days are getting fewer and fewer. For the most part, walking isn't an issue. Stairs can be difficult but if I go slowly I can do it. Besides, most places have elevators now anyway, so it isn't a big problem."

"Is there anything you can't do?" Shinra asks.

"Running," he says. "Jumping, climbing. Anything like I used to do is largely off limits at this stage. As you can understand, I've been trying not to make _too_ many enemies, just in case."

"So you're not…" Shinra trails off mid-thought, realising he should have probably kept his mouth shut.

Izaya looks at him curiously. "Not what?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing, nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Well, now I want to know." Izaya leans forward in his chair. "You can't leave me hanging, Shinra. I'm your guest. It's bad form."

Shinra fights down the smile that threatens to rise at Izaya's words. "No, it's just. When you left the city that night… Well, everyone knows what you did. Nobody knows _why_ you did it. Something like that… everyone said you had to be plain stupid not to realise the outcome."

Izaya's eyes narrow in anticipation.

"But you did realise it, didn't you?" Shinra asks. He watches Izaya's face for any change. "You're not stupid. You always plan for every potential outcome. But I bet this," he gestures to Izaya's legs, then to the wheelchair next to the sofa, "wasn't your desired result."

Izaya's expression is blank, carefully so. "I always knew you would figure it out. That's one of the reasons why I told Kine to take me far away from Tokyo that night."

"You could have come to me," says Shinra softly. "Before _or_ after."

For the first time in years, Shinra hears Izaya's bitter laugh, devoid of any positive emotion. "Be serious, Shinra. That same night, Celty was also going to leave the city. If it came down to me or her, who would you choose to save? We both know it wouldn't be me."

Shinra glances down to the cup between his hands.

"Am I wrong?" he says, his voice quieter now. The traces of bitterness are gone. "Of course you would choose her. It's obvious."

"You didn't even give me the option to choose for myself."

"You can be honest with me. There's no point in lying to yourself or to me, we both know the worst parts of you." His tone is gentle, almost kind. It sends goosebumps shooting across Shinra's skin. "I wouldn't judge you for it."

Shinra closes his eyes. Even after all that has happened, his initial reaction would be Celty. But Celty _left_ , because of him. Looking at Izaya now, after knowing each other for over fifteen years – Izaya, who has always known exactly what Shinra was capable of and time and time again ran towards it, never away from it – it seems that there was another option he never allowed himself to consider.

"Sometimes I wish I had stopped you," he says, and it's as honest as he could ever be.

For a moment, Izaya's face morphs into an expression Shinra has never seen before. Something like longing, and hope, and wonder. Then he says, still in that same, quiet voice as before, "Sometimes I wish you had too. You're the only person who could have."

Shinra has never heard anything so terrible in his life.

"Why?" he asks. "Why did you try to—" He tries to finish, but the word gets caught in his throat. In his line of work, he's seen a lot of death and has in some ways become indifferent to it. But when it comes to Izaya, who always chased after life—

Izaya lowers his gaze and his hands twitch around the cup of tea which is surely going cold. "Shinra, that's…"

"I know," says Shinra. "It's not a fair exchange, right? I'll tell you something in return then."

Immediately, Izaya frowns and looks up. "No, that's not what I—"

He shrugs. "Well, I was going to tell you anyway. I was waiting to see if you would stay or leave. But either way, I'm just saying it sooner rather than later."

"I might still leave," says Izaya, but there's no feeling in it.

A laugh slips out despite his best efforts. "I've never heard you sound any _less_ determined than that. It doesn't matter. I want to tell you about—about why Celty isn't here."

Izaya watches him warily.

"My father let something slip during one of his visits," he says, making sure to keep his tone light and indifferent. "Something about how I always knew where her head was and tried to divert her attention when it seemed like she was going in the right direction. He… also implied that I gave it to you for safekeeping. We fought for a long time and then… she just left. I haven't heard from her since."

Izaya blinks. "That's stupid. Considering my plan all along was to reunite Celty with her head at the most opportune moment."

"Is it really so unrealistic that I'd give you something precious to hold on to for me?" Shinra asks. His heart speeds up as he says the words, his palms suddenly clammy. Despite himself, he glances away and hears Izaya sigh long and slow, like he's been holding it in for a long time.

"Considering you spent all of your time after you started dating Celty trying to avoid me… I would say yes."

The reply is not what he had expected – or rather, not what he had hoped. Is this how Izaya felt every time he was rebuked and rebuffed by Shinra time and time again? This unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he did something wrong, like he has to scramble to fix it before the clock runs out.

There's a silence that seems to stretch on for eternity. "I suppose," he says hesitantly. "That I should apologise."

Izaya is surveying him with a look in his eyes that even Shinra himself can't decipher. It's been over fifteen years since he felt as though Izaya were a code he could not crack. Distance, and the ever-present neglect that inevitably follows, always aches.

"You're really not good at this, are you," says Izaya, but he's smiling slightly as he speaks.

"I've never had to be," he replies.

Izaya considers him for a moment then shrugs. "Well, it's not like I'm particularly gifted with sincere apologies either. Say whatever you want."

"One of the last times we spoke, you said that you didn't want anything from me," he says. The memory of that phone call from five years ago is still fresh in his mind. The tremble of Izaya's voice over the line, the uncomfortable sweat across Shinra's entire body as he tried his best to come to terms with his emotions. "You said that you stopped missing me over ten years ago."

"I did," says Izaya steadily.

"If you meant that, why did you come back? Why did you come _here_ , of all places?" Shinra's hands shake and he pushes them beneath his knees.

"You might have noticed that I don't have many friends," he replies, slightly self-deprecatingly, but his smile doesn't move.

"The real answer, Izaya."

"Because I wanted to see you again," he says easily, without a trace of hesitation or deception.

All at once, Shinra finds himself without words.

"Is that really so hard to believe, Shinra?" His voice is gentle again, but his self-assuredness never fades. It's then that Shinra understands, finally: this is Izaya grown up. No longer playing at being an adult, or pretending he's still a teenager. Somehow, in the last five years, Izaya grew up and Shinra stayed static, frozen by the loss of the two people he cared the most deeply about.

For the first time, Shinra feels envy, bone-deep.

"Of course not," he says with a lot more confidence than he feels. "You were always chasing after me, after all."

Izaya looks taken aback for a split second before he laughs brightly, tilting his head back. "You always saw through me." There's a silence before he continues, "Did you ever chase after me, Shinra?"

"No," he says bluntly, although it's not the whole truth. "I… did everything I could to stop myself from chasing after you."

"I know," says Izaya. "I knew that day you called me, five years ago." His expression is wistful. "I understood everything then. Maybe things even you yourself didn't know. But you know now, don't you? I can tell."

"Then why did you ask?" Shinra asks, but there's no real anger or frustration in it.

Izaya shrugs. "Sometimes I just want to hear things said aloud. Don't you? Isn't that why you wanted me to tell you that I missed you five years ago?"

Five years ago, Shinra had never pictured this conversation happening. He had never imagined Izaya like this: so open and honest, yet still capable of backing Shinra into a corner. Five years ago, he had tried to push Izaya into saying that he missed Shinra in a last-ditch attempt to validate his own feelings. If Izaya had missed him too then he wasn't making up the tension between them. That he wasn't going crazy imagining scenarios in which they were both honest with each other, what that future might have looked like, whether they could have been happy with each other or not.

"You know the reason why." Shinra closes his eyes.

"Then say it," says Izaya quietly. "Just say it, Shinra. I've already worked it out. I already know. There's no harm in saying it now. It's just me."

Shinra looks at Izaya, face cut into shadow by the low lamp and the city lights reflecting from the window. He has always thought that Izaya was beautiful. At times darkly so, eerily so, but the thought itself never changed. Even when he was cut up and spitting profanities, eyes dark with an emotion Shinra knew nothing about. Even when he was taunting Celty lazily about being a monster from Shinra's own couch, sprawled out like he owned it.

Now, Izaya has laugh lines and a certain brightness about him that's fresh. There's a distance between them that feels like a million miles and Shinra can barely look at him. He shines in a way he never has before.

Yet he opens his mouth and nothing comes out.

Izaya gives him a glimmer of a smile before standing up. His legs shake slightly but he steadies himself. "You can't say it," he says, and glances towards the window. "That's fine. I'll say it then."

He looks back at him, and suddenly Shinra can't seem to find his breath any more.

"I love you. I've been in love with you since high school at least."

Shinra stares.

"So now what?" Izaya asks.

"I…" Shinra shakes his head, overwhelmed with something he cannot vocalise just yet. "I just… Can you—sit down? I want to—"

Izaya takes the seat next to him. Carefully, Shinra raises his shaking hand and skims his fingertips across Izaya's cheek. Izaya lets his eyelids fall until they're half-shut. They're thirty now, Shinra thinks absently. Thirty years old, and yet Shinra wants to kiss him like they're seventeen on the school rooftop. How much time did they waste? How many years of avoiding one another in fear?

The fear was mostly on Shinra's part, he knows.

If he had asked, on any of those occasions when he had the opportunity to, Izaya would have given himself to him without hesitation. Izaya has always known exactly what he desired and chased after that heedlessly.

Maybe, Shinra thinks, it's time that he does the same.

He lowers his hand and presses his lips against Izaya's in a way that he's longed to do for almost a decade. The years slip away between them, dissipating into nothing as Izaya kisses him back, his hand coming to rest on the back of Shinra's neck, pulling him closer.

The distance evaporates and for the first time in years Shinra feels at home.

And then Izaya pulls back and glances to the side. "You asked me a question earlier. Why I did what I did before I left Tokyo."

"You're still good at evading questions you don't like," says Shinra mildly even though his heart is still racing in his chest. "I guessed you didn't want to talk about it."

But neither does Shinra, although perhaps that's mostly selfishness on his part. He doesn't want to consider all of the things he could have done differently, how he could have changed the course of events that led to that night. If he had been a little less cruel, a little kinder to the people surrounding him then Izaya would never have gotten injured so seriously.

"I don't," Izaya replies, his voice catching in his throat unpleasantly. "I don't want anyone to know about me like that. People are only allowed to see what I want them to. I never wanted… Except you. Because you already know the way I am."

"I want to know everything," says Shinra, and he's surprised to find out just how much he means it.

And so Izaya tells him everything that led to that night on Sunshine. The collapse of everything he worked for, bone-deep jealousy towards both Shinra and Shizuo, and frustration at himself for being unable to see his plans through to the end.

"There's one thing I don't understand," Shinra says slowly. "Why didn't you release Celty's head long before that? You could have achieved everything you wanted there and then. Why wait?"

For the first time that day, Izaya actually looks uncomfortable. "That's… Well, there were a lot of reasons… But if I guess if I had to choose one then the main reason was because I knew that—well. You would never have spoken to me again. It would have ruined your life."

Shinra starts in shock. That wasn't what he had been expecting to hear. The idea that Izaya had sacrificed everything he had been striving towards for years, all for the sake of Shinra's own happiness—Shinra feels mildly nauseous. Had he ever considered Izaya's feelings in the same way?

Without even thinking about it in depth, he knows the answer is no.

"So you see," Izaya says, and his smile doesn't reach his eyes this time. "I felt like I had no choice. By choosing to fight Shizuo, I couldn't see an outcome where I lost. If I defeated him, I won against the monster. If I died, everyone would finally see him the way I saw him. As just a beast." He talks about Shizuo with the same words that he used to but some of the animosity has evaporated from his tone.

He pauses before continuing and when he starts again, his voice is unnaturally even. "But there was one outcome I didn't predict. Kine got there before either result could be achieved and then I—well, you know the rest."

"Didn't you view dying as losing?" Shinra asks quietly, already afraid of the answer before the words are even out of his mouth.

"I do now," Izaya replies, and Shinra knows that's the closest thing he's going to get to an honest response.

But even now, even though Shinra had known all this time that Izaya was alive and recovering, he still wakes up in a cold sweat after dreaming of a world without Orihara Izaya in it, a world where Izaya really did die that night with his blood splattered in a vivid, startling red across the pavement. It chills him to the bone and something deep inside of him aches intensely at the thought. He's always known the reason why.

"I love you," says Shinra softly. The words are easier to say than he anticipated. All at once he feels air-light, buoyant. "I think I always have but I was so scared, that it might not be allowed, that I couldn't—I never wanted to think about it. But I do. I love you."

Izaya smiles brighter than the city lights in response. Maybe they have a shot at being happy, after all, Shinra thinks.

"So stay," he says, his hand on Izaya's. Skin on skin. Electric. What he's kept secret for years, repressed and concealed, finally coming to rest in the static between them.

 


End file.
